Gas fired barbecue grills often have multiple tube-like burners arranged in a front to back direction across the width of a firebox. The firebox commonly contains the burners as well as burner shielding and heat manipulation devices, all under a cooking grate. Multiple burners may be provided with individual gas valves for control of gas flow into the burners. Respective valves can be set to provide different flow into adjacent burners, which at least in theory allows variable heat across the cooking grate above the burners. However, the effectiveness of such variable heating is limited as all the burners are in a common open space below the burner shielding and heat manipulation devices.
Gas carryover tubes may be placed in the common open space between adjacent burners to allow ignition of one burner to lead to ignition of other burners. These carryover tubes are linear elements formed with a more or less enclosed tubular section smaller in area than the burners which are being connected with a provision to allow burning along the length of the tube at a relatively low rate. Examples of this type of device can be found to be described in US Patent Application Publication No. 2016/0069564 A1 and US Patent Application Publication No. 2015/0013663, both incorporated herein by reference.
Grills have been built with primitive dividers between the burners or have been built with separate box-like structures comprising individual fireboxes for each burner. In such case, the dividers or vertical structures, which must of necessity extend up to close proximity to the cooking grates, are vertical in nature. In the case shown in U.S. Pat. No. 8,985,092, incorporated herein by reference, there are upwardly opening v-shaped box-like structures formed around each burner. In the case with the v-shaped structure formed around each burner, efficiency and speed of heating is improved by the reduced volume and surface area to be heated by each burner. With structures such as that of U.S. Pat. No. 8,985,092, each burner is individually lit at an ignition point on the burner. In such case, the carryover tubes commonly used on fireboxes without dividers or box-like structures are not present.
The lack of a carryover tube carries with it certain disadvantages. One such disadvantage is that the failure of ignition components at an individual burner makes it quite difficult to light the burner without using cumbersome and inconvenient manual lighting (e.g., with a match or some such device). Another disadvantage is that in the event that flame is lost at one burner due to a gust of wind or other disturbance there is no automatic re-ignition by flame carryover from adjacent burners that are still burning. A user might then not be aware that the burner is no longer supplying heat to the cooking surface.
What is needed is a system and method for addressing the above and related issues.